Harbinger Feedback Thread [Merged]

[Dark Effectz.8205]

I have to agree about the elixirs. I really liked the concept but the elixirs were not flavorable.

Maybe just 2 elixer types and some other damage skillz to go along with it

Just my thoughts

Other than that....really loves the spec

Edited August 22, 2021 by Dark Effectz.8205

[Eramonster.2718]

Pistol skill 3 is a free stun every 10 seconds in PvP/WvW is very powerful. Elixirs skill portraits will need better icons to make it impactful and differential. Power creep but that's expected.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Eramonster.2718

[Gehenna.3625]

For me, I liked playing with the harbinger purely from the mechanics but it totally doesn't feel like a necro spec to me. Why it was fun to play, is probably because it does so much damage, so when the inevitable nerf comes, that will probably go away too.

 

I've called this spec Nekro 2000 or the Von Hellblighter, because the shade of green that is used for blight feels very modern, even contemporary and this is why I don't really like it in a fantasy setting. I also really don't care for the set up with elixirs, you could have the same skills using different naming and icons of the skills on the right side. That would already go a long way. 

 

Just my opinion of course.

[theGrayWolf.3815]

Hi there,
Really wish Anet to redesign the utility icons on Harbinger, they look so bad/basic to me. i know they are supose to represent elixiers but still, they're not even necro themed...

 

[Curennos.9307]

First off, I like the concept of harbringer so far. The only thing I think it's missing is some sort of extra interaction with Blight, and maaaaybe a little tuning durability wise + the GM traits.

 

First, Blight. It's just 'there'. It stacks up, it sloooowly winds down, and otherwise it doesn't feel all that interactive. I would love some sort of way to consume Blight stacks for a benefit, like adding power to a skill. I think this would work nicely if shroud skills were adjusted to be slightly weaker than current, but with the potential to be empowered to be slightly stronger than current. So the necro could get a few empowered skills off before reverting to 'unempowered' skills. Something like that to give the spec some kind of flow from rampup -> vulnerability state -> burst dump -> repeat.

 

Having high blight stacks the majority of the time doesn't feel good when skills are on cooldown. The extra damage is nice, but there's a cost-benefit thing going on where it's REALLY nice when you're using your damaging skills, but then feels really bad afterward. I think it's important to maintain some sort of vulnerability state for the spec afterward, but 25 sec feels too punishing.

 

Also, I think having empowered versions of skills to 'spend' blight on would allow more flexibility, forcing the player to choose between a stronger damage skill or a stronger mitigation/movement skill.

 

Secondly, the GM traits suffer from the same fate as reaper (when are you going to change the reaper quickness trait into something just pure damage oriented without relying on boons, btw? It really needs that. Anyway) - the quickness one will be better in a lot of scenarios because quickness is just an amazing boon, regardless of the presence, or lack, of allies to share it to. Both damaging traits are also high risk in anything other than your typical pve scenario, and necro isn't all that great at sticking to a target in the first place, nor would they want to for very long. The quickness thing COULD be fixed by making it so the necro gets a shortened duration version and allies get a longer one, making the necro work harder to get perma quick on themselves, but that's probably needlessly difficult to pull off. 

 

And, on a side note, blight decreasing hp feels...weird. Maybe there's a better way to put necromancer into a vulnerable state? Increasing damage taken or something. I'm not too sure how much I enjoy how the changing hp can impact other traits, and just my armor stat choices as a whole. Also, you're probs gonna have to nerf the hp regen - I fiddled with a 35k hp necro earlier and it was...interesting. I'm not sure having a necro with 25-30k hp boon'd out the wazoo and focused on LF gen running around is a good idea.

 

Elixirs feel a tad flat (like they're just a skill that does a relatively generic thing that I fire-and-forget or use like I would anything else. Like the theme, could use a bit more mechanical complexity - which, if blight is adjusted, could come from that ).

[Inexplicable.4165]

My impression:

1) Harbinger shroud and blight

The new mechanic is interesting and Harbinger certainly feels different from other specs. That said, I often struggled to build up a substantial amount of life force. Harbinger never properly 'clicked' for me. The other issue I have is that the spec doesn't interact with Blight enough. As others have suggested, perhaps it should affect our shroud skills or elixirs (like Holosmith's heat). Harbinger shroud skills are mostly fun but if I think some of them could definitely be improved. Shroud 2, 3 and 4 feel a bit clunky at times but that's just my impression. 

2) Pistol

Pistol is a solid weapon and I haven't got many complains apart from the animations. Pistol 3 is a very impactful skill and at the moment the effect is hardly noticeable. It looks unfinished and I really don't like it. Pistol 1 looks fine I think but pistol 2 could be improved as well.

 

3) Elixirs 

Now that's by far the biggest offender. As they stand, elixirs are the most boring skills in the entire game and it's not an exaggeration. Pressing a button to get boon is inherently boring but then the icons and animations seem unfinished too. Frankly, if there's one thing I think harbinger absolutely needs is a complete redesign of elixirs. Lots of people have provided a number of interesting solutions so I won't dwell on that but I'd really appreciate if you could make them more fun to use. 

4) Traits

Personally I think it was a mistake to give us power, condi and support options in one spec. This severely limits our choice and makes a lot of the traits feel boring. Doom Approaches is one of the biggest offenders in my view. It's effective but it feels like such a lazy and uninspired trait. I'd scrap it completely and replace it with something more interesting.

 

5) Fear

 

This is probably the main reason why I'm writing this. I think it's awful that we lose access to fear in shroud. Not only has this always been part of our identity, but also it means that our choice of traits is severely limited. You might think it's not a big deal but in PvE you'll typically run Curses and Soul Reaping with a condi build and if you don't have a 'fearmancer' option that basically leaves you with one build. I honestly think this is just bad design and I think we should get fear back. You can add it one of the shroud skills, one of the elixirs or perhaps a trait. However, I really hope this will get changed. 

 

 

Overall, I think the spec has a lot of potential but I think we definitely need a few changes. For me personally, elixirs and fear would be the most important changes. 

[xfayrox.8146]

Ok played fair share of harbringer  in open world, raids, raid golem benches and ranked pvp with different builds in this beta. Some people are complaining its too tanky, others that it is too squishy, some say it does too much damage. They are all kinda right and also wrong at the same time. If you go with full zerkers or vipers, offensive runes and pick all offensive traits it does alot of damage especially the condi variant. Against golem its good, but in real life u have to consider in that case you have 11,4k HP + you are inflicting conditions to yourself to transfer. No blocks or aegis and stuff. So every tiny mistake ends your life. On the opposite spectrum you can be very tanky if you go with vitality gear and take defensive traits, but then the damage is also fairly low. Some traits can be surprisingly strong now with some builds. Like unholy sanctuary is interesting now with high vitality build, also blood bank with torment rune makes you tanky tue to alot of torment stacks. They can seem even overpowered at first but the tradeoff is alot of damage when takeing either blood magic or death magic, so it kinda balances out. Maybe like -10% overall damage on the condi builds would be fair.

Thoughts on traits:
Traits felt kinda too obvious and not many options to chose from if u decide to be either pdps or cdps or support. The +damage/condidamage for blight should not be major trait, instead build in minor adept. Major adept could be something with a real choice that suits different builds. Something maybe like small passive effect vs some defensive boon on dodge vs movement imparing effect clean on entering/exiting shroud. The minor grandmaster is too strong in my opinion should be halved aka like Vital Presistence -the healing boost (since its minor trait afterall)

 

Thoughts on shroud:

Shroud animations where fast and fun to use, exept maybe shroud 5, that was maybe abit slow to pop for such a big tell in pvp, should have same cast time with heralds chaotic release aka 3/4s instead of 1s, other than that it felt in some ways like faster version of lich form kinda.

 

Thoughts on pistol:

No real complaints, felt fun to use for me.

 

Thoughts on elixirs:

Elixir range is too short to play support comfortably in my opinion. 360 range instead of 240 should fix it. Elixirs felt kinda boring in general, the durations and cooldowns need to be adjusted to make most of them worth picking over core necro skills. The elite for sure felt impactful, in my opinion even too overpowered, maybe should only be the defensive or offensive portion of it and like aoe stun 1sec + 15% or so lifeforce, otherwise noone would pick it over plaguelands in pve/lich form in pvp. The elixir icons looked all kida the same but different color, didnt like that.

 

Thoughts on not haveing F2-F5 skills:

It makes the rotation and gameplay too easy and it will get boring quite quick. Its just pop your cooldowns and hit F1 and then 1+ 2 off cooldown for 25 seconds then again pop your cooldowns and F1 and repeat. Haveing access to F2-F5 or even F2-F4 while in shroud would make it more fun to use. Maybe something to do with blight like F2 eats some stacks of blight and removes or transfers few conditions, F3 eats some stacks of blight and corrupts or steals boon(s), F4 eats some blight to give regen and break stuns or something among those lines.

 

[Grymlocke.1067]

Feedback:

 

1:  Skills 1/2 I love and I found with a certain build it was very enjoyable  but Skills 3/4 "move to skills" were very boring and not of much use in PVE environment vrs Dodge as for skill 5 its Radius was so little it was pretty much Missing most targets and felt for a Skill 5 VERY lack luster

 

2: Elixers............. very boring.... these really need a revamp on what they do  or provide, cant say much more  didnt even use them  when I found a good build 

 

3: Blight mechanic,  so basically you start off with 34 36k hp  and after you do your 20 seconds and max DPS potential you then come out of it and  your 14-18k HP this is fine its the reward/risk part but THE time it takes to get back to full hp  / lifeforce could be 15-25 seconds this part here is a little annoying as HP/LF are linked so much  it really is a no reward option after the initial  going into should the first time

 

4: Grand master traits need some work the middle one for quickness is perfect so will runes i can give quickness to the group constantly for 20 seconds but the top GM trait and the Bottom (very very lack luster also)

 

beta was fun but compared to Reaper and Scourge this was a little disappointing  :( 

[KinkyPotato.4219]

Made a separate thread on this before the beta feedback threads were posted so figured I'd post this here as well to include my feedback.
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Currently, the Harbinger has very little interaction with Blight as there are only simple damage modifiers in the Major Adept categories. Blight should be a mechanic that enforces high-risk, high-reward for damage and support builds however, supports gain no benefit from it all. It simply becomes an overbearing handicap with no pay-off for them. Furthermore, elixirs seem incredibly limited in their current iteration and the inclusion of compounding modifiers looks uninspired and lazy. Blight should be something the necromancer goes out of their way to stack to get insane payoffs, not something that passively hinders their max HP forever (25 seconds is an insanely long time and for something as punishing as 50% reduced max HP). As others have pointed out, removing shroud health and half your health pool sums to a near 80% loss of the necromancer’s total accessible health  (credit goes to https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/99616-harbinger-violently-handicaps-itself-for-things-necromancer-already-has-or-doesnt-need/?tab=comments#comment-1431188) which is far too debilitating for a class that's supposedly encouraged to go into close range to deal damage. Similarly, the over-emphasis on Torment needs to be shifted to another condition (such as Poison) as it overlaps with the Scourge's specialty and leads to monotony. Here are some suggestions to make Blight more interesting, to spice up elixirs, and to differentiate the Harbinger from the Scourge:  

 

BASELINE

Elixirs : Vulnerability application from Vile Vials is now baseline for all elixirs. Instead of slow, elixirs now also fear for 1 second. Animation should change from drinking the elixir to smashing it on the ground.  Base radius of 240.

Elixir of Promise: Increased duration of vigor to 6 seconds. While at or above 10 blight stacks, gain protection. Instead of inflicting blight, this skill now removes all blight stacks. Healing is no longer split between game modes and will now use the higher WvW healing value in all game modes (Carrion beta gear in WvW= 4,840; Carrion beta gear in PvE = 1,923).

Elixir of Risk: Increased duration of might and fury to 12 seconds. While at or above 10 blight stacks, grant 25 stacks of might but reduce duration of might by 50%.

Elixir of Anguish: Increased duration of swiftness to 12 seconds. While at or above 10 blight stacks, apply 3 stacks of poison to nearby enemies. Cooldown is no longer split between game modes and will now use the 25 second cooldown in all game modes (currently PvE = 25 sec cd; WvW= 30 sec cd).

Elixir of Bliss: Increased duration of resolution to 6 seconds. Reduced number of conditions removed from 5 to 3. While at or above 10 blight stacks, convert 3 conditions into boons for yourself and nearby allies. Cooldown is no longer split between game modes and will now use the 25 second cooldown in all game modes (currently PvE = 25 sec cd; WvW = 40 sec cd).

Elixir of Ignorance: Increased duration of resistance to 6 seconds. While at or above 10 blight stacks, grant 5 stacks of stability for yourself and nearby allies if a stun is broken.

Elixir of Ambition: Increased duration of all boons to 6 seconds. While at or above 10 blight stacks, reduce this skill's cooldown by 1 second for each unique boon applied to yourself.

Blight: Reduced duration from 25 seconds to 12 seconds. 

Poison: All weapon and shroud skills that inflicted torment now inflict poison instead.

 

MINOR ADEPT

Alchemic Vigor: 

Current functionality - Gain increased vitality.

New functionality - Gain 1% reduced incoming strike and condition damage for each stack of blight you have.

 

MAJOR ADEPT

Wicked Corruption:

Current functionality - Deal increased strike damage for each stack of blight you have.

New functionality - Deal increased strike damage for each stack of blight you have. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, Devouring Cut will consume your stacks of poison on targets to deal additional strike damage.

 

Vile Vials: Renamed to "Alchemical Success"

Current functionality - Elixir skills gain reduced recharge and inflict vulnerability and slow to nearby enemies.

New functionality - Gain increased healing power for each stack of blight you have. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, Dark Disciple will now heal allies in a 360 radius for 50% effectiveness but at a 100% increased life force cost.

 

Septic Corruption:

Current functionality - Deal increased condition damage for each stack of blight you have. Shroud 2 skill also inflicts poison.

New functionality - Deal increased condition damage for each stack of blight you have. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, Devouring Cut leaves behind a field that pulses poison.

 

MAJOR MASTER

Implacable Foe :

Current functionality - Gain stability when entering Harbinger Shroud. Gain ferocity based on your vitality.

New functionality - Gain stability when entering Harbinger Shroud and deliver an attack in a 240 radius that immobilizes foes. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, attack radius increases to 360, always critically hits and will reduce Harbinger Shroud's cooldown after exiting by 2 seconds if an enemy is hit.

 

Twisted Medicine: Renamed to "Apothecary"

Current functionality - Elixir skills also grant their boons to nearby allies. Gain concentration based on your vitality.

New functionality - Elixir skills gain 120 increased radius and also grant their boons to nearby allies. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, elixirs will grant protection and regeneration (3 second duration).

 

Dark Gunslinger:

Current functionality - Pistol skills gain reduced recharge. Gain expertise based on your vitality.

New functionality - Pistol skills gain reduced recharge and poison now reduces heal effectiveness by 40%. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, gain Maniacal Toxicologist after exiting Harbinger Shroud. Maniacal Toxicologist causes your next three poison applications to also grant quickness.

 

MINOR GRANDMASTER

Corrupted Talent:

Current functionality - Gain 15% life force when you enter Harbinger Shroud.

New functionality - Gain 10% life force when you enter Harbinger Shroud.

 

MAJOR GRANDMASTER

Cascading Corruption:

Current functionality - Your power is increased. While in Harbinger Shroud, you gain an aura that pulses each interval to damage and cripple nearby enemies.

New functionality - While in Harbinger Shroud, you gain an aura that pulses every second to damage and cripple nearby enemies. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, aura radius increases to 360 and grants you a stacking power and ferocity buff every second (12 second duration). One additional stack is gained for each enemy hit with the aura (max 10 stacks). Gaining attribute stacks refreshes the duration of all current stacks.

 

Deathly Haste: Renamed to "Hasted Inoculation".

Current functionality - While in Harbinger Shroud, gain an aura that pulses each interval to grant quickness to yourself and nearby allies.

New functionality - While in Harbinger Shroud, gain an aura that pulses every second to grant quickness to yourself and nearby allies. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, aura radius increases to 360 and grants you a stacking concentration and outgoing healing buff every second (12 second duration). One additional stack is gained for every ally affected by the aura (max 10 stacks). Gaining attribute stacks refreshes the duration of all current stacks. 

 

Doom Approaches: 

Current functionality - Your condition damage is increased. While in Harbinger Shroud, you gain an aura that pulses each interval to torment and weaken nearby enemies.

New functionality - While in Harbinger Shroud, you gain an aura that pulses every second to poison and weaken nearby enemies. While at or above 10 stacks of blight, aura radius increases to 360 and grants you a stacking condition damage and expertise buff every second (12 second duration). One additional stack is gained for each enemy hit with the aura (max 10 stacks). Gaining attribute stacks refreshes the duration of all current stacks.

 

These changes should incentivize necromancers to actively maintain their blight stacks in order to gain powerful bonuses. These changes would also synergize greatly with their elite, Elixir of Ambition as that would set them right away at 10 stacks of blight. Once their elite is used, they could begin to work on accumulating more blight to enhance their combat capabilities. Tying in modifiers to blight stacks in the grandmaster traits as opposed to passive conversions from vitality motivates necromancers to try to aim for that coveted 25 Blight stack number. Furthermore, passive attribute bonuses on the offensive grandmaster traits have been reworked to instead be granted over time as you accumulate blight, with faster stacks being granted for tagging applicable targets with the aura. This really solidifies the harbinger's high-risk high reward playstyle by bolstering them further should they take the risk to go close. Wicked Corruption and Implacable Foe were reworked to increase Power Harbingers damage in all game modes by giving them a powerful attack when entering Harbinger Shroud (which is further amplified at the blight threshold) and providing them a unique way to work with Poison. Similarly, elixirs have been reworked to provide additional benefits and utility while at or above the blight threshold. Durations should be increased by 1 second (20%) as the elixir trait no longer reduces cooldown by 20%.

 

As a result of these boosts however, blight's duration should be reduced from 25 seconds to 12 seconds to promote its active maintenance. Elixir of Promise should remove Blight stacks to grant temporary reprieve from blight's reduced health albeit at a complete purge of offensive power. This would let you have some control over your health penalties should the situation get too hairy while also giving your enemies a chance to capitalize on your weakened capabilities. Reducing the life force gained from Corrupted Talent and the vitality granted by Alchemic Vigor would also emphasize the importance of maintaining blight.

 

With these proposals, support Harbingers would now have interactions with blight, granting them improved supportive capabilities as their health decreases. Additionally, necromancers would have access to a plethora of viable builds and synergy with various core specializations. Dread (Spite) and Terror (Curses) could be combined with Elixir fears to create a fear-based necro. Putrid Defense (Death Magic) could be combined with Poison traits to further enhance your poison damage. Blood Magic and Eternal Life (Soul Reaping) could be used with the support traits to create a well rounded support. The possibilities would be endless!

Edited September 17, 2021 by KinkyPotato.4219

[Glott.7239]

First a little disclaimer, I'm copy-pasting a lot of this from my notes i took locally durring the beta so i apologize if the formating ends up a little weird here on the forums.

Dark Disciple (Minor Adept)

the current regen effect (3% of current max. current lifeforce) might be a little to high.

Corrupted Talent (Minor Grandmaster)

15% life force on entering shroud might be a bit to much. 10-12 should be fine.

Vile Vials (Major Adept)

This trait is currently the only one in its tier not interacting with blight. To make it more interesting and buff elixirs, most of which are a bit underwhelming at the moment, this trait should reduce elixir CD based on current blight by 1-2% and the elixir base CD should be adjusted accordingly if needed.

Septic Corruption (Major Adept)

Poison duration might need to go down a little.

Elixirs General

A bit nit-picky but the elixir Icons look a little out of place. I’d say the one for Elixir of Promise is fine as Blue is often used for heal skills but the other once are a bit to bright and blue as well. Shifting the background a bit more towards green should help to make them feel more “necrolike” but overall the icons look to similar for my taste.

Elixir of Promise (Heal Skill. Blue Elixir)

This skill has some inherent anti-synergy with your natural heath regen, reducing the amount you heal per second by applying blight. Gaining 10% (15%) life force does not compensate for this well enough as you rarely find yourself with 0% life force to begin with.

This skill should remove blight, rather that apply it, to bolster health regen form Dark Disciple and allow you to be healed back up further, while having some other drawback. My suggestion would be self boon rip or even corruption, the later of which would lead to more synergy with condition transfer skills or Elixir of Bliss. The amount of blight removed should correlate to the amount of boons you removed (1-2 blight per boon, for up to 5 boons removed). The healing factor is fine in it’s current (low) state. Life force gain could be removed with this change.

Elixir of Risk (Utility. Green Elixir)

This Skill feels a bit under powered when compared to Blood is Power. Design wise it’s fine but the numbers aren’t quit there yet. The previously suggest change to Elixir CDs should already help this skill a bit but I think the best buff to this might just be a nerf to the absurd might generation from Blood is Power. In it’s current implementation it’s basically just a worse version of warriors "For Great Justice!"

Elixir of Anguish (Utility. Red Elixir)

This is fine. Only swiftness feels a bit boring. I think a small and short(er) burst of superspeed would make this skill more fun. Maybe a little CD adjustment with the change to Vile Vials would be needed.

Elixir of Bliss (Utility. White Elixir)

Okay skill but the Resolution on such a powerful condi cleanse skill feels redundant. A bit of protection would compliment this much more and make it more interesting for PvE boon support builds where power damage is much more prevalent than condi. Furthermore instead of a static 5 stacks blight this skill should apply 1 stack per condi that was actually removed with 1-2 blight baseline (for the boon application). This would also make this a good candidate for becoming ammunition based, to promote more tactical use in PvP and together combos with the previously suggest change to Elixir of Promise

Elixir of Ignorance (Utility. Black Elixir)

Couldn’t test it so far but the stunbreak of this skill should be shareable through Twisted Medicine aswell. Than it’s fine.

Cascading Corruption & Doom Approaches (Major Grandmaster)

While they are pretty powerful both of these GMs traits feel quite boring. Maybe giving them some sort of blight interaction aswell would make them more interesting but in general they both feel a bit to similar and there game play should be a bit more distinct from one another. Cascading Corruption feels like it is considerably weaker than its counterpart. Torment output from Doom Approaches might be a bit to high.

Harbinger Shroud

(F1)The color grading effect should be even more distinct from other Shrouds to better signal to the player that it’s no longer shielding your health.

Tainted Bolts (Shround 1)

While it’s very fun shooting like a machine gun with this skills rapid attack speed, this might be a but to much, especially under the effect of quickness. Reducing the attack speed just a tiny bit and bringing dhummfire duration back up a bit to compensate would be my suggestion.

Dark Barrage (Shround 2)

Fun Skill but let’s be real, it might need a slightly higher Cool down. 4 Sec. is nuts. 5-6 Sec. should be fine.

Devouring Cut (Shround 3)

CD would get forced up by increasing Dark Barrage CD as well. Might need a buff in return and to make it more useful in actual combat. Number twiking should do it here.

Voracious Arc (Shround 4)

This one should be a leap finisher. CD might need to go up a little.

Vital Draw (Shround 5)

This should be a Combo field, probably dark, or switch it up a little and make it maybe Ethereal. Life force gain might be a bit to high.

Weeping Shots (Pistol 2)

Could use a slightly higher slightly higher cool down and / or maybe less torment duration. Power coefficient could go up a bit, to facilitate power play styles a but more, in exchange Vulnerability could be removed.

Vile Blast (Pistol 3)

Pretty strong maybe a slightly higher cool down is in order. Like other pistol skills this should also be a (projectile) finisher

but with 100% as it’s a single projectile on a longish CD. Poison and weakness might need to go down a bit in exchange. Removing the poison and weakness but adding an all-in-one poision field + blastfinisher could be an option aswell, given the new combofield prioritasation, this would still proc weakness but relay synergy with other pistols skills to inflict poison.

Elixir of Ambition (Elite. Orange Elixir)

Might need some CD adjustment, especially with the proposed changes to Vile Vials, but other that it’s fine in PvE, maybe a bit over the top for PvP.

[Kami.8342]

In Fractals, when the instability is frailty the blight mechanic scales in such a way that it is almost unplayable.

 

At least for frailty it needs to be multiplicative not additive, example with full vipers @ 22k hp

Currently the calculation is:

22k hp * [ 1 - ( 0.5 blight + 0.3 frailty ) ] = 4.4k

 

The calculation should be: 
( (22k hp * 0.5 blight ) * 0.3 frailty ) = 7.7k

Edited August 22, 2021 by Kami.8342

[Blue Pilot.5648]

I'll just start all my feedback posts by saying where my perspective as a player comes from. I play guildwars as a pve roamer, if that's even a thing. I do some light group content, world bosses, and all around enjoy exploring the world solo or with friends. I don't do much raiding, wvw, or pvp.

 

When it comes to the Harbinger, it took me a minute to figure out how to play them. There's a couple build options in the traits, which is good, but they don't feel particularly exciting. All the grandmasters just grant a different flavor of aura which do benefit the build of your choice, but do not actually change your play style. Same thing with the elixirs; they're all the same icon, animation, and effect, it's just a matter of picking what boons you want. However the new visuals (animations and effects) for Harbinger Shroud are a joy to watch.

 

Now for some scattered thoughts:

 

- Elixirs. They work well on engineers because engis get the bonus F skills out of them. The harbinger does not, so they need a little extra oomph to make them interesting. Maybe they can be used while in shroud with additional effects. The animation for using the skill is a chug and toss. Maybe the point where the bottle lands is the source of an extra AoE effect. Maybe some of them are strictly for throwing, and they work like thief's "Cluster Bomb" where if they're re-activated mid flight, the Harbinger shoots the vial creating a wider AoE. Just give them something else. 

 

- Voracious Arc. I do not have a sylvari thief/daredevil, so when I saw that backflip in the trailer I lost. my. mind. It was so smooth and so clean, I could not wait to try it out, just for the visuals. Fast-forward to the beta, and I make a human, and then norn harbingers and realize it's just "Vault". Now this does not take away from the animation, since it is still one of the coolest in the game, but it looks a little out of place when you see both of these races (as a harbinger) using an invisible staff to propel themselves into the air. I would love to see all just use the clean sylvari backflip. Additionally, since again there is no staff, it would be awesome if the landing was changed for the three point landing that is already in the game (as seen with ele's "Ring of Earth", or with the Willbender's elite "Heaven's Palm"). Am I focusing too much on visuals? maybe. But if it can take the game to the next level, why not?

 

I think this is all I had for the Harbinger. I enjoyed being in shroud as much as possible, and once I found a build that worked for that it was fun, but the utilities and traits could still use polish to make it exciting to play. 

[Tigerkralle.1435]

Not sure a pistol is the right choice for a Necromancer but i can get used to it.  Bold decision and a new take on a Necromancer the new shroud was fun and a modern approach to Necromancer is welcome.

 

As for the skill icons of all the elixiers for the Harbinger: My impression is that it's just one icon in different colours and overall it looks like a placeholder! Those weird bottles or just plain numbers from 6 to 9 on a simpe one coloured background are the same if you ask me.

 

If those icons are final i will try to use a minimum amount of those skills because they ugly in my eyes and feel totally like the work of someone who knew they are going to be fired or quitting on their own or they quit mentally and are secretly searching for a new job.

[LucianDK.8615]

Regarding the trait with 15% lifeforce on entering shroud. It was mainly meant to help with flicking into shroud to fire off an ability and cancelling shroud again, most likely a movement ability. Because we have the trait that melts lifeforce to heal the player outside it, which makes it hard to keep lifeforce ready.

[Daevhalla.7823]

After playing on all three beta specs, I think the Harbinger is the worst of the lot to play on. Compared to Virtuoso and Willbender, that feel fluid to use and somehow enhance their base class (even with virtue problems some players put forward), it just feels clunky and slow to use. Even with the pistol and 'mobility' shroud it feels like I'm moving too little and it just slows down my overall pace (and I main necro!). Thinking over this I think I'd attribute most of this to the long shroud CD - while it doesn't feel like that while using reaper the shroud CD on Harbinger feels too long and not fitting with the style of play it promotes. As well as the use of elixirs. Looking at all the other utility skill I just feel the lack of need to use them, especially as we're given no actual way to interact with Blight. Even the elite skill feels underwhelming especially compared with other necro elites (I know.. all the boons in the game - but only for 5 seconds), especially in PvP and WvW where running into anything boonstripping or miscalculating the timing just makes it useless.

[sweetmesquite.5024]

For background: I main a necro, and have 4k hours played in the class in PvE, including open world, fractals, fractal cms, strikes, and raids. I do not participate in any PvP, and have very limited experience in WvW.

Overall thoughts on Harbinger: it feels like a good start. Currently, the risk in endgame PvE is high (ESPECIALLY in some raids and fractals. Ask my healers; one said keeping three harbingers up was harder than solohealing Dhuum.) but the reward doesn't seem to scale with the class mechanic.

The new shroud has good flow, the aesthetics and sound effects are very solid, excellent condi application, and some great CC. My only complaint is that skill 4, Voracious Arc, has a cast animation that feels jarring when used directly after any of the other shroud skills. I understand the need for CC skills to have tells for PvP and WvW, but it feels a touch longer than reaper shroud 5, Executioner's Scythe.

The pistol weapon skills are pretty solid. It brings good CC, solid condi application, and some decent life force generation. Vicious Shot does feel a touch slow when fighting a single target, but the ricochet is very nice when facing several mobs. 

Blight is a good concept, but it lacks potential. It's good that blight accumulates in shroud, but it doesn't have enough interaction with elixirs and shroud skills. Holosmiths have to manage heat: they get bonuses when they have a lot of it, but the overheat mechanic is a punishing consequence. Making blight a mechanic that needs to be regulated, instead of max-and-forget, gameplay, would be much more interesting and engaging.

There is no way to remove blight, aside from waiting out the long timer. The heal elixir currently applies blight. I think the heal should remove a modest amount of blight, 5-10 stacks, in exchange for something. What came to mind:

"Cleanse (5-10) blight. Heal ‘x’ amount, plus an additional amount for each boon on you. All boons on you are stripped."

Elixirs are alright. The flat healing on the heal elixir feels very low, but the life force is nice. Elixir of Bliss has the most interesting play of the utilities: scaling life force gained per condition cleansed is good. The rest are less compelling, just "press button, receive boon" or “press for more blight.” Suggested improvements: Elixirs could be thrown skills with an AoE indicator, or have a different effect when in shroud, or could be traited to do additional things, similar to how Master of Corruption tweaks corruption skills.

Traits need some revisiting. Some of them (Twisted Medicine) are excellent for a support spec. Others feel uninspired. All three master-tier traits are all different flavors of "convert 13% vitality to x stat." All three grandmaster traits are "select your pulsing shroud aura." This lacks diversity. Scourge traits give a variety of options and niche uses: think cdps to varying levels of support and hybridized builds to fully-fledged healer. Scourge traits offer interesting changes that can fundamentally change how you play the class.

The constant healing from life force should be a trait, not the default. I found it to be difficult, and often frustrating, to build enough life force to even enter shroud. The life force bar constantly shifts in size based on blight changing the health pool, and it is aggravating to try to figure out exactly how much life force you have so you can determine what shroud skills you have enough life force to use. I suggest that healing by consuming life force replace the GM trait Cascading Corruption; power builds don’t mesh well with the class.

Overall, Harbinger is fun to play, but it needs a few adjustments.

My other suggestions are for equipment provided to beta characters. I like that runes and sigils are provided, but what’s better for testing is the ability to select what runes or sigils we get to play around with. There were 12ish different runes provided, so offering 12 boxes with a selection bar to pick what runes you want would be great. Same with sigils.

Edited August 23, 2021 by sweetmesquite.5024

[Zoser.7245]

I did not expect that I would like this specialization over the others. The blight was not a mechanic that I liked. But surprisingly I have had more fun with this specialization than with the others… without using elixirs.

Elixirs are boring, monotonous, uninspired utilities. Also you drink them and throw the bottle to the ground so there are not many options to add any extra component/mechanics in themselves. Some players already commented that elixirs should iterate with the blight to add or remove blight based on the type of elixir. But, if thematically all elixirs add blight by definition since it is their way of acting on you to empower you, I find difficult that the developers will change their mind or concept about them. So i have two concepts to improve them that i will explain later with few more things.

The traits works, but I believe that polarize the power vs condition choice in adept tier is enough because at the end, the options you offer in the grandmaster tier for power and condition are both for melee traits. I watch better and more useful merge the melee traits and offer a new grandmaster for ranged style as alternative.

Finally profiting this feedback, there are also obsolete skills in some of the necromancer off hand weapons and i believe that, at least, one of those weapons need an update to gain a better synergy with the Harbinger’s pistol.

My ideas for improve the Harbinger are the following ones:

 

Harbinger Shroud:

Devouring Cut or Voracious Arc should be a leap finisher.

And remember to change/fix Voracious Arc to be cast on target when you are underwater. Keep the ground targetting on terrain.

Now the concepts to the elixirs, maybe a mix of them could also work...

 

Concept 1 for make elixirs more useful. (It's not my favourite, but better than leave elixirs as they are now):

This concept is based in add combo fields and interact with them making elixirs more useful but also more active to use allowing combos with them. In fact the change in Shroud suggested previously add a leap finisher. If that finisher is not added i will add it later as an alternative. As you drink elixirs and then throw it to the ground. When the elixir bottle hits the ground, it will trigger a finisher in two of the elixirs while the rest will create combo fields.

Elixir of Promise:

This is very obvious,  in addition this elixir creates a water field when you drink the elixir as i think that this Elixir healing is not good. The area of the field could also pulses XXX healing per second. Duration: X seconds.

Elixir of Risk:

Make this skill be a blast finisher.

Elixir of Bliss:

Add an Ethereal combo field. Duration: X seconds.

Elixir of Anghish:

There is two options. If you make one of Shroud's skills a leap finisher then make this elixir a leap finisher with a very short leap to gain basically the combo finisher utility. If one of the Shroud's skills gain the leap finisher then make this skill gain a whirl finisher and add a whirl effect to the animation while throwing the elixir bottle to the ground.

Elixir of Ignorance:

Add a Smoke combo field. Duration: X seconds.

Elixir of Ambition:

I doubt between two. I prefer add Poison as a combo field but Light also fits the theme of this elite. One of those can be added as combo field. Duration: X seconds.

Concept 2 for make elixirs more useful and fun:

This will require more work as it will imply add secondary skills to the elixirs. After cast each elixir and get its effects you gain access to a secondary skill. In fact, i ask myself if these skills could even replace the elixirs making them obsolete, by merging some of the elixirs effects with these secondary skills and balance them , of course. I love this concept but maybe the Vile Vials should be reworked and remove the 20% cooldown reduction to the elixirs there OR leave it as it is and give this skills their own independent cooldown from the elixir's.

Elixir of Promise:

Gain access to "Tether Healing" skill after drink the elixir.

- Tether Healing: Your corruption tether your enemies in its area of effect life stealing XXX health per second. Number of targets: 5 Radius: between 900 or to be defined. Duration X seconds. Number of targets: 5

Elixir of Risk:

Gain access to "Tremor" skill after drink the elixir.

- Tremor: Stomp the ground blasting the area and damaging nearby enemies. Damage XXX. Radius 360. Combo finisher: Blast Number of targets: 5

Elixir of Anghish:

Gain access to "Corruption Repeater" skill after drink the elixir.

- Corruption Repeater: Throw fast corrupted bolts to your enemies in a straight lines blighting them. Bolts (5x), 2 stacks of blight per bolt. Pierces. Range: 900. Number of targets: 5. (As an alternative if developers don't like the idea of inflict blight in your enemies it can do a bit of damage and apply torment them per bolt. The blight could be then in the elite maybe with a bigger cooldown.)

Elixir of Ignorance:

Gain access to "Corrupt Path" skill after drink the elixir.

- Corrupt Path: leap backward leaving a corrupt path in your way that cripple and inflicts x stacks of poison to enemies in its patch area Duration: X seconds Distance: XXX. Number of targets: 5

Elixir of Ambition:

Gain access to "Corrupted Avatar" skill after drink the elixir.

The idea is that you become completely corrupted losing yourself and transformed in a corrupted avatar.

- Corrupted Avatar: Become a corrupted avatar floating, unable to be targeted and pulsing corruption that corrupts your enemies. Interval: X Duration X Radius: 600 Number of targets: 5. Your corruption apply 2 stacks for blight, chilled, 2x torment and poison per pulse. Once your avatar stance ends you get full Blight. (Blight can be changed for XXX damage if the developers don't like the idea of inflict blight on enemies.)

I love the Corrupted Avatar idea. Is full risk, like or you kill first or be killed to the full get blight at once when it ends if you are focused, so be careful if you want to use it to be sure that you'll win...

 

Optimization of traits:

I mainly like them but i prefer keep the choice between power and condition only in the adept trait tier and merge Cascading Corruption and Doom Approaches/Approaching Doom as the melee grandmaster option and create a new grandmaster for ranged play style.

Cascading Doom: (new grand master trait)

New trait resulting of merging Cascading Corruption and Doom Approaches/Approaching Doom. You can add half the power of Cascading Corruption as a buff and add half the condition damage of Doom Approaches which will be the part that empower you. And then merge the second Cascading Corruption and Approaching Doom for the pulse merged AoE damage. For example. (This trait replace both as the melee trait and leave space for a new ranged trait).

Ranged Grandmaster: (new grandmaster trait)

Increase your Shroud and pistol skills range by 300 and its radius by 120.

Or only Shroud skills or only pistol skills, main hand weapon skills, sigle hand skills, etc, whatever combination of skills  that developers consider good enough for include it in a trait like this. 

 

For the offhand weapon:

Warhorn's Locust Swarm skill is pure garbage, obsolete, a lot worse than skills with 10s cooldown even if you have 5 enemies literally on your head when comparing their performance along the fight time. This idea is for improve it in general but also gain synergy with the pistol of the Harbinger and have two off hand weapons that fit well with it.

Warhorn:

Locust Swarm: The locusts can also apply poison every few seconds synchronizing themselves, the swarm locusts has it radius increased to 240 and its cooldown reduced to 25s. After you cast the skill you gain access to a secondary skill, “Chasers”, that let you command the locust swarm. Like when you command minions. This skill and Locust Swarm share the duration timer. So once you command the Chasers, its duration will be the time remaining since the locust swarm ability was activated. And when that timer expires both will enter in cooldown sharing that timer too. So the combo of skills will be like:

Locust Swarm:

Gain swiftness. Summon a swarm of locusts that siphon health to you from nearby foes and also apply poison on them every interval. Then you gain access to the “Chasers” command skill.

   Life Siphon Damage: 66 (0.2)?

   Life Siphon Healing: 37 (0.08)?

   Swiftness (15s): 33% Movement Speed

   Life Force: 1.5%

   Number of Impacts: 10

   Number of Targets: 5

   Duration: 5 seconds

   Radius: 240 (New radius)

Poison: 1 or 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds. (new condition added)

Interval for Poison: 3 seconds. (interval for poison added)

Range: 900

New cooldown: 25s

- Chasers:

Command your Locust Swarm to chase your target fast for the remain time of its life. If your swarm of locusts passes around enemies on its way to your target, it will also attack them siphoning their health  and poisoning them for as long as your enemies are within its area of action, discounting the number of impacts / attacks that occur during the encounter and continuing towards your target. The Locust Swarm continues active until its duration time expires, even if your enemies die or nothing that can be attacked is inside the swarm, so it will still attack anything that enter in its area before its life time expires.

Range: 900

 

Well, that is all. I hope that some of these ideas will help developers to improve or optimize the Harbinger. Thank you for reading.

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Zoser.7245

[VergilDeZaniah.3295]

Having thought a bit about Blight these past days, maybe there's an option to make it more "interesting" (or at least what I deem interesting). Sorry if it has been already discussed on the topic, I haven't read the last few pages.

 

Blight would permanently reduce your healthpool while increasing your shroud pool (along with other benefits - maybe we could also merge Wicked Corruption and Sceptic Corruption?).

In other words, let's say your health is 20,000 and your shroud health is 5,000. While getting stacks of Blight, you would reduce your health to 10,000 and increase your shroud to 15,000, allowing you to stay in shroud for longer. Shroud would be used as a real second health bar (just like vanilla Necro and Reaper). In order to have some sort of control on Blight, harbingers would get F2 and F3 skills.

 

F1 - Harbinger Shroud : nothing changes.

F2 - Blight : Channeling skill. Gain stacks of Blight while reducing your maximum health.

F3 - Remedy : Channeling skill. Remove stacks of Blight while increasing your maximum health.

 

Now, elixirs wouldn't play a role on Blight, they would rather generate life force to replenish the shroud. They would remain unchanged, besides granting life force (let's say, 5% per elixir) to the player instead of inflicting Blight, and maybe inflicting a condition to a nearby enemy (so it's not simply used as a bottle of water to quench the thirst for life force 😇😜).

 

The trait Twisted Medicine would therefore be modified, it would make the elixirs throwable, granting boons to allies in the area as well as conditions to enemies.

 

This way, imho, Harbinger would get interesting trade-offs for applying Blight to himself, and elixirs would get a bit more interesting in terms of gameplay.

Edited August 23, 2021 by VergilDeZaniah.3295

[Coinhead.7591]

Good

• Shroud skills feel good to use
• Blight mechanic
• Healing when out of shroud
• Nice to have access to quickness sharing build

Bad

• Elixirs feel boring, feels like they are all same skill
• Power based harbinger feels very weak, maybe because base necromancer power based skills are weak too.

 

[mazut.4296]

Accumulate Blight slower, but with longer duration. It also should add more positive effects, not just dps increase. Add the option to consume all blight stacks with the F skills. Can be used with minimal of 15 stacks.
F1: Enter/exit shroud.
F2: Remove or transfer few conditions and pulse short cripple. 6s cd

F3: Gain some defensive boons. Stability, vigor and protection. 10s cd
F4: Immobilize for 2 sec and teleport or stealth. 18s cd

F5: Fear and/or slow in radius. 25s. cd 

 

Maybe add a trait that decrease 20%cd and share them with up to 5 allies.

 

Add combo fields to all the elixirs.

Edited August 23, 2021 by mazut.4296

[trixantea.1230]

Aside from Harbringer's skills and gameplay, I think that one of the most annoying things about this spec is the UI.

 

Tracking corruption by looking at the small debuff icon is annoying and the -xxxx  thing on the health bar is a poor design. Instead of making corruption debuff look like this. It would be better to make it appear in a new bar similar to Holosmith Heat bar.

 

The concept below can make Harbringer UI look better than it is:

 

https://i.imgur.com/hRNjOiw.jpeg

Edited August 23, 2021 by trixantea.1230

[Aplethoraof.2643]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:54 PM, Sunshine.4802 said:

While shroud and pistol skills are great, elixirs just feel incredibly boring and unimpactful

Basically this. Elixirs literally all felt the same. None of them seemed very exciting, unlike reaper shouts or scourge's utilities.

 

[Rym.1469]

I think top priority for the spec - as far as PvP goes - has to be punishing the playstyle of seldom using shroud and playing very passively, relying on massive HP regeneration. I'd hate to see Harbinger go down this unintuitive way and would be a lot more happy for it to take the playstyle of a roamer instead.

 

One simple idea I had was to reduce the LF->healing (or even make it not interact with Vital Persistence) a bit in exchange for a trait - minor or major - that would increase Endurance regeneration for each Blight stack. Devs themselves will probably find solutions to it though.

 

Edit; I brought up the idea of adding extra Keys to Harbinger (F2) the change depending on GM taken, but healing could go similar route. Baseline 1-1,5%/s conversion, F2/3 skill (whose cd recovers quicker when you stay in Shroud) temporarily boosts this conversion to 3-4%/s.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Rym.1469

[aymnad.9023]

Pvp impression: unranked

I am happy to have correctly foreseen how tanky it can be ^^. Between constant regen and perma weakness I expected an effect similar to ranger wilderness survival on the forums and was not disappointed. I played without the elixirs because I struggled a bit with them.

I mostly played a power builds which lacks a bit of damage but is still good.

This spec has a ton of defense but at the same time can get bursted. During the beta it definitely was a bit on the + side but I am not sure if it needs a change right now. Maybe it becomes too strong as people become better or maybe it gets countered.

 

PvE impression: on golem

I got the same results as in PvP but amplified. Power did less than I expected and condi was strong. It maybe needs a shift between power damage and condi duration.

 

Trait / utilities:

I tried elixirs and the quickness trait in strikes. They are… difficult to rank. Some are really strong, (dispel /  quickness / elite ), while some do not provide much for a necro (resolution). The build with quickness, might was strong but without arc I could not tell if this was too much or not. I will probably not play the espec in fractals because I was already getting hit hard in strikes.

Pistol damage looked high. A bit too high or too frequent maybe? Something like pistol 2, axe 2, shroud 2 is a nonstop machine gun.

The shroud is really fast and has short cds. It was fun to use. Shroud 4 was a bit weird. Because of the jump animation I expected to be able to kite / do some jumps but could not do most of them. Shroud 5 offers a Super strong cc. I do not remember the values in PvP (cd / duration [I should have written some notes earlier]) but it felt frequent.

I said that it does not need some huge changed in pvp but the lf increase / decrease / regen ratio should probably be looked at. It was extremely rare to run out of lf or care about it.

 

Other:

While trying builds on the golem I did not see any effects for the shroud 5 on multiple occasions.

Edited August 23, 2021 by aymnad.9023

[Flumek.9043]

1) Elixirs feel a bit boring and simple.  And weakish compared to the classic must have utilitys (walk, wurm)

 

2) Theres no real reward for blight.  No way to interact iwth it, no way to lose it.

You just gain  +25% modifier passive.... Something active like the holosmith suicide bomb from overheat feels much more interesting,

I wish it was more a short but deadly boost, instead of "permanent negative barier"

 

3) The GM traits are passive.  That means 0 variety,

GM traits SHOULD DEFINE A PLAYSTYLE.

It should be mix of   lower CD , longer field , passive proc , active bonus , bigger AoE , slower cast....

Insted all 3 are same pulsing aura and damage buffs...

 

Its NOT WEAK , its just not really interesting.

Looks like a core condi necro 2.0 , glassy edition.

 

I see 0% chance of power being viable with hybrid modifiers and current power weapons clunk (looking at you, dagger) , so why design power traits? 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Flumek.9043